Page 70 of Faeling (Monstrous World #4)

So many plans were in motion, it made Ravenna sick.

Another night with hardly any sleep passed interminably slow, the tenuous bond inside her strained and dim.

The smell of him in their bed only brought silent tears, and so when the camp roused for breakfast, Ravenna was quick to flee the soft place where her mate had lain.

There was only more waiting to do today.

Well, that wasn’t entirely true. There was one final important thing she needed to take care of.

Carrying two bowls of porridge, mixed with nuts and berries, Ravenna reentered the tent. Leita watched her approach from her place in the corner, gaze as wary as ever.

Taking a seat beside the cot, Ravenna handed Leita her bowl. The fae regarded her suspiciously, her indigo eyes nearly black in the deep shadows of the tent.

Ravenna got a few bites into her, needing the warm reinforcement, before beginning.

“I suspect we’ll receive word today, and move out soon after,” she said.

“I see.”

“I’ll need your help to kill her.”

Leita’s upper lip curled back in a show of disdain. “That sounds like your own problem.”

Ravenna mashed a berry into her porridge until purple juice squirted over the grains. “The plan is—”

“ Your plan is worthless—it’s entirely dependent on me agreeing to become Queen.”

“No, it’s dependent on you becoming Queen,” she spat back. Ravenna made herself sit back in her seat. Take a breath. Calm. Collected. Threatening the woman would get her nowhere. “I would speak with you civilly. Negotiate, queen to queen.”

Leita snorted. “Neither of us are queens.”

“But we could be.” Leaning forward, Ravenna pinned the other woman with a steely stare. “My mate has made me his queen. Your blood declares that you can take Amaranthe’s place. Why should we not treat?”

“Over what?” Leita sputtered. “Which of us will die first?”

“Upon Amaranthe’s death, the cycle will renew. It will take time, but the fae will hopefully begin to live without the sole need of magic. Your people haven’t grown or prepared food in centuries. I can ensure that a steady supply reaches them.”

“They aren’t my people,” grumbled Leita before shoving a spoonful of porridge in her mouth.

“But they could be.”

The other woman just spooned more porridge into her mouth, brows arched defiantly.

Ravenna took a more prim bite, reassessing.

“Whatever you want, if it’s in my power, I will give it to you.”

Leita smiled maliciously. “The promise of an almost-queen about to die means little to me. Besides, what I want isn’t within your power.”

“Try me.”

“I want my family,” she snarled.

“Ah.” Ignoring the ache in her heart, for Vallek, for her parents, Ravenna set down her bowl. “I can’t bring your mother and sister back—but I can promise you a family.”

Leita’s frown was a forbidding thing, hiding the vulnerable way her eyes glittered with unshed tears. A knot formed in Ravenna’s throat to see the feral need inside her.

Fates, she truly had been out in the wilderness, all alone.

Take the wildness away, the royal fae blood, the spite, and what was left was a woman yearning for a family.

“Don’t be cruel,” Leita murmured.

“I’m not. I have visions, remember? It’s how I found you. I can look into your future, see if there’s a family waiting for you.”

The woman sat in brooding silence, and Ravenna had to hope no immediate refusal was promising. Slowly reaching out, she laid her hand gently on Leita’s knee. Her eyes slid closed, willing a—

—wings mantled on broad shoulders—you won’t be rid of me now, doe—flames licking the night sky—burn it all, and from the ashes—life—a sweet cry—I knew you’d find me—

—vision.

Ravenna sucked in a breath, eyes slowly opening. Her sight was fuzzy for a moment, the image of Leita, her lips parted in shock, eventually coming into focus.

Leita groaned. “You—I saw—I felt—”

Slumping back in her chair, Ravenna took a moment to breathe. It was far more than she usually saw, a whole, busy life spreading before her like unfurling wings.

“You will take the throne and heal the faelands,” she said, not proud but not ashamed to embellish, “but you won’t have to do it alone.”

A stark, desperate hope carved lines across Leita’s face. “You’re lying.”

Ravenna shook her head. “Your future holds so much. An azai . A child. And—” this was more speculation than anything, but Ravenna again wasn’t ashamed “—I don’t think you’re the only one who escaped.”

“You’re as cruel as she is.” Leita’s words were hardly more than a whisper, but they struck Ravenna with the force of a hammer blow.

“I saw it all. You will just have to live to see it.”

A tear escaped Leita’s eye. She immediately went to wipe it away, the manacles forcing her to lift both hands.

This time, Ravenna did feel shame. She’d meant it when she told herself she had to stop being the reason for so much suffering. This…she could start with this.

Heart heavy, she reached to clasp the manacles. It was a gamble, but one she had to take.

Tracing her finger in a tight pattern, the first manacle clicked and unlocked. “They are spelled to release only by the touch of the one who locked them,” Ravenna explained as she traced over the second manacle. She wasn’t sure how the scholars had worked that out, only grateful that they had.

When the irons released into her hands, Ravenna tossed them aside.

Leita didn’t immediately spring up and run for the tent entrance, and so Ravenna pressed on.

“Now we can speak as equals.”

“Because we’re queens?” Leita derided. Her hackles were back up, her knees curled to her chest as she rubbed her wrists.

“Because we both know what it is to lose everything.” Sliding from her seat onto her knees, Ravenna took Leita’s hands in her own. The woman watched on in surprise as Ravenna bent to press her forehead into the backs of Leita’s hands, an ancient gesture of supplication and humility.

“What are you…?”

“Amaranthe has taken everything from me. My future, my peace, my parents. Now she’s taken my azai, too, the only good—” Ravenna bit back more tears, pressing her forehead harder into Leita. “I want justice. I want revenge. For my parents, for Vallek, for the girl I could have been. For you, too.”

Ravenna raised her head, unable to hold back her tears. Leita stared back at her, glassy eyes searching Ravenna’s for deception.

“We’ve been running our whole lives, the two of us. From her—but from the fates, too. I think…it’s time we stop running. I think it’s time we make our stand.”

Leita shook her head slowly, her expression troubled. Uncertain.

A frantic, dangerous kind of fluttering hope seized in Ravenna’s chest.

“I’ve seen it, Leita,” she said, hearing the desperation in her own voice. Her throat clogged with it, with more tears, with the need to make her understand. “You will live. I swear it. You will live and she will die. I’ve seen it. All my life, I’ve seen her fall.”

“What about you?” Leita murmured.

“I don’t know. I don’t care, so long as Vallek is safe.” Squeezing Leita’s hands, she begged, “Please. Please help me. I know now I can’t kill her alone. But together—together we can do it. We can end this.”

Leita swallowed hard. “You swear you saw my azai? ”

“Yes.”

“On your mate’s life, you swear it?”

“Yes!”

Leita squeezed Ravenna’s hands back. “And you swear, on his life, that you have seen Amaranthe die?”

“Yes.”

All the breath seemed to rush out of Leita’s lungs at once, her back bowing as she leaned over Ravenna.

Magic rushed around them, slithering under every blanket, pot, and chair, writhing up every tent post, and wrapping round Ravenna’s wrists and ankles.

Leita held her there with magic, a tendril winding round Ravenna’s throat, as she gazed into her eyes.

Ravenna held still, allowing this powerful fae to do as she liked. She could look and take what she needed.

Leita’s eyes glowed eerily, and in their ghoulish light, Ravenna saw the shadow of her kinswoman. The power of a royal fae, even uncrowned, was terrible, a force equaled only by nature itself.

Whatever Leita did to her, Ravenna felt herself scooped out and laid bare. Her innards were spread across the floor, every bone and nerve and secret exposed. Her wings trembled against her back, shuddering as if they wished to curl up beneath her shoulder blades and hide.

But there could be no hiding.

When the magic pressed against her lips and nose, Ravenna let it. She held Leita’s awful gaze, and it was like looking at the sizzling white energy of a lightning bolt. It burned her from head to toe, but Ravenna wouldn’t look away.

She let Leita see it. Everything. She stared down the inferno of a wildfire, a scared little orphan girl.

That was all she was. All she’d ever been was a halfling girl who wished for a different life.

A scared little girl who, for a brief, wonderful moment, had had everything she wanted—a mate who loved her, a life worth living.

But scared little girls could hurt people, and that’s what she’d done. In her need for vengeance, she’d allowed her azai to be put in danger. Her hurts had become the hurts of others, and it was a wound she could never heal from.

But at least she could lance the poison.

“Do you swear it?” Leita asked, her voice gone deeper, as though it was some other, more ancient entity who spoke.

“Yes.”

Something burned around her neck—the most pain Ravenna had ever felt—but in a moment, it was gone.

The magic reeled back, rushing home to Leita. It left nothing but a few dust motes whirling through the air, and yet its impact was so profound, it left Ravenna altered. Reshaped.

She sat there for a long moment, unable even to blink.

“You’ve sworn to it,” Leita intoned. “Should this not come to pass, your life is forfeit.”

Air rushed into Ravenna’s lungs, and she sucked in great gulps to fill her chest. She touched her throat to feel the phantom burn of their bargain.

Fates, she didn’t know fae could do that .

Perhaps only Queens could.

Meeting Leita’s gaze, not quite so terrible now, Ravenna nodded. Very well. Her life was forfeit anyway.

“Then so be it,” Leita whispered, sealing their pact.

Ravenna’s tears came rushing back, her relief exquisite and agonizing. She thanked Leita in burbling sobs before her face fell to the woman’s lap. There she cried, her heart overwhelmed by new, excruciating hope.

The congealed, dried blood on Vallek’s chest and arms itched something fierce. In his darker moments, he would’ve traded his kingdom for someone to scratch the brown flakes off and bring him some relief.

Of course, there was no relief in this dark place.

Even in the daylight, the citadel of Fallorian was shrouded in shadow. Ancient banners hung by threadbare ropes, and moldering curtains spanned the tall, narrow windows. Dust and decay was the only scent, a carpet of muzzy gray obscuring the inlay pattern on the marble floor.

From his place in one of the many niches of the citadel, chained and with his back to the pedestal where a statue had once been, Vallek could clearly see how the great bastion was crumbling away. If he cared to see, at least. Which he didn’t.

There was nothing in this dead place save for him—and sometimes a cruel shadow.

“Your people send word.”

Vallek didn’t bother looking up to witness the Fae Queen’s theatrics.

She was fond of dissolving in and out of shadows, throwing her voice from across the room, and using her magic to make floorboards creak or curtains flutter somewhere she wasn’t.

She meant to frighten him, unnerve him, and Vallek took great delight in being neither.

No better than an untamed onager throwing a fit, she had tried for the better part of a day to scare him, break him. For now, she played nice, no doubt aware that too much malice would push them both past the brink of war.

Of course, she was prone to losing her temper. Hence the first set of claw marks.

A cold rush of air battered his face. Vallek sneezed from the dust that rushed up his nose.

“She will trade herself for you.”

Damn you, sprite.

Vallek’s gaze flicked up to meet the formless shadow lurking above him. Too quickly. The shadow laughed without a mouth.

From the darkness came a withered hand the ashen color of aspen bark. Claws with blackened beds just touched the scar on his bare chest, where his mate had set her fangs. Her claiming mark.

Another laugh in Amaranthe’s dull, dusty throat as those claws found familiar tracks. Vallek clenched his teeth as they raked slowly down his chest, reopening the fresh scabs. Blood dribbled down to his abdomen to soak the waistband of his trou.

Chained still in the spelled manacles, he hadn’t the strength to do much more than glare defiantly at the faceless shadow.

“An orc king and a halfling fae. How ridiculous. And they say I usurped the natural order.” Through the hazy darkness, he could just see the curve of a wicked smile. “I will set the world to rights when she comes to save you.”

Vallek turned his face away, bored of her threats. There was nothing she could do that would hurt him more than seeing his mate harmed. And she well knew it.

They came the next day, at dawn. Two fae ships. Skimming the water as elegantly as dragonflies, hardly needing to part the waves. As they neared the shore, Ravenna descended the grassy slope, Asta, Mattias, and a cloaked Leita behind her.

A dozen fae jumped into the shallow water to walk ashore. At their head was the messenger who’d come before, his light hair again pulled back in a long tail.

“Our esteemed queen agrees to your terms,” he said in orcish. “You will come with us to Fallorian.”

“We will have our king first,” countered Mattias.

“He remains in Fallorian.”

“Then we’ll all sail there,” said Ravenna. “Together. When the orcs have their king, Amaranthe will have me.”

The messenger didn’t like it, his lips thinning as he glanced behind Ravenna to assess the berserkers at her back.

Knowing he and his forces were outnumbered, there was no other answer for him to give than, “Very well. We will escort you.”